Milk Carton Boy was meeting somebody tonight.
Chris didn't strike me as the kind of guy
who needed a representative. Where is he?
- Get in! - [girls scream]
DIARRA: Who are you?
Detective Elias Marshall, retired.
That's Goldie Lucket, mob fixer.
You better hope she don't work for Zervas.
He was my prime suspect in '95.
Tank missing.
- Who is she? - [screaming]
This shit get ugly,
you and your whole independent nation getting drafted.
- You're still my wife. DIARRA: You couldn't go anywhere
in this city without running into one of Swa's siblings.
I read the police report.
MARSHALL: I wouldn't wipe my ass with that redacted bullshit.
You're a coward.
The only one who knows what happened is me.
DARRIA: I was still cloudy about a million things,
but finally sure about one, I needed an answer.
Which meant I was seeing this shit through to the end.
MARSHALL: Every cop's got their Deonte Brooks.
The case you think you'll solve by lunch.
Shit.
The first time you put on that detective badge,
you think you're going to be a real hero.
Three decades later, you're driving Uber, hoping
to scrape together enough pesos to keep the lights on.
* Speaking of happiness *
* You never thought of mine *
* Mentioning loneliness *
* I feel lonely all the time *
* Ever since you went away *
It's John Zervas. It has to be John Zervas.
- There's no other way. - Fucking hell. Coincidence?
This kid got taken 30 feet away
from the front for the Greek mob.
CHAMBEERS: Of course, you catch a live hand grenade
- first time up, kid. - You got something, newbie?
We ran every food court employee and this guy comes back.
John Zervas, known bagman for the Greek mob.
Did I not say stay on the mother?
My CI swears Mr. Greeks Express is nothing but a drug front.
The kid wanders in, Zervas, working security,
has to keep him quiet.
CI puts him there just about every day.
- Gets in at noon. - You fucknuts deaf?
Guy's got an alibi.
Witnesses have him at Eden's Strip Club for the entire night.
John Zervas, long time.
I give my order to you, errand boy?
I know you took Deonte. I'm gonna prove it.
You ain't too bright, are you, kid?
I told you I was at the titty bar.
[speaking foreign language]
[indistinct chatter]
Excuse me, ladies. I need to go over your statements.
- John Zervas. - He done already told you.
- He was here the whole time. - Yup, the whole time.
Now start sipping if you want to keep talking.
- Captain's pissed. - He's a coward.
You're going to get your butt thrown off this case.
Sometimes keeping your head down and your mouth shut
- is a smart move. - I didn't ask you to come.
That's the thing about partners. You didn't have to.
Look, kid, I call these cases "fishbones."
They stick in your throat.
You ain't comfortable as long as you feel them there.
But the truth is, if you don't find a child in the first 48,
you probably ain't gonna.
[rock music playing]
What kind of car did the mom say she saw again?
Green Impala.
- You ain't going solo. - If Zervas spots me,
I'm just a young hot shot. Won't follow orders.
You got your pension to worry about.
[dramatic music]
* *
[gunshot, glass breaking]
Chambers, Chambers, no. Hey.
Who did this?
Was it the Greeks?
[stutters, groans]
What's up?
I don't understand.
Is that a star?
What does that mean? What does that mean?
I don't understand. What does that mean?
Chambers. No.
Chambers. Hey. Open your eyes.
No, no, no. Come on, man. Hey, come on, man.
Looking for Deonte cost me everything.
And all I learned was there's a lot to be said for the unsaid.
"Sometimes keeping your head down
and your mouth shut is the smart move."
It's your fishbone now. The coward.
DIARRA: I called Marshall a coward,
and I guess my words stuck.
Days later, he left his notebook on my doorstep.
I thought it meant he would help.
But the case was my fishbone now.
And this asterisk drawing was a far cry from a smoking gun.
And I needed a bazooka.
* *
But I needed a reprieve.
I needed some sense of peace somewhere.
And, for a moment, I found it.
I didn't mention the case or how it had put me
on a collision course with the Greek mob.
I kept my mouth shut about the cop who wanted
answers about a murder.
And we sure as shit never talked about
the elephant in the room.
My missing lover, size 13.
* *
[cell phone alert]
I had no idea what we were doing.
And I didn't care to talk about it.
It had been three nights of Danger.
I was up to four hours of sleep.
The pancakes were bomb. The rules were unspoken.
* *
[siren blaring]
[phone notification]
Girl, you smashing Danger?
I thought you was victimized by Milk Carton Boy.
DIARRA: We are not smashing.
We are enjoying each other's company.
MONI: I seen the footprints in the snow back and forth
from your place to his place. Three nights!
Bitch, your nosy ass.
What the fuck?
How are you identifying tracks in the snow?
You should work for Animal Planet.
MONI: If y'all ain't smashing, what y'all doing?
You sure you good? You been weird.
I'm good. What's up with Zervas?
Black folks don't get involved with this kind of stuff, Swa.
I know, I know.
A dead white guy and a bunch of sex shit?
- I mean, make it make sense. - Relax. Relax, okay?
Do you know if she's a suspect?
Not yet. They're leaning in.
If they find out I gave her that goddamn file,
all 'cause what? You feeling guilty?
All right, so I'll talk to Diarra and this detective.
Who's running it? Is it Polk?
- Ha. Holstein. - Oh, get the fuck out of...
- Is it Holstein? - Yeah, it's Holstein.
Fuck. All right.
Okay, I'm gonna talk to him. Don't worry about it. I'm on it.
- All right? - All right, you better.
- How's it feel, Swa? - What's that?
To finally be the one that fucked up.
TEA: Okay, hold on, Dee, 'cause I'm not following.
I gotta write this shit down.
Okay. Let me get this straight.
DIARRA: Outside my little Danger bubble,
all my messes were waiting for me.
So, Ambien may have been avenging
his kidnapping instead of solving it,
- and using you to help do it. - Uh-huh.
And you still want to find him because you're obsessed with it?
No, because Ambien owes me an explanation.
At this point, I want to smash because this shit is ridiculous.
And Zervas is a powerful mob guy who kills cops and kidnaps kids.
But we gonna find his weakness and take him down?
- Yeah. - Sure.
Yeah, but, bruh, we got another problem.
I can't get this nigga out my house.
[clears throat]
Bruh. Yo, bruh. Wakey, wakey.
- I got you a parting muffin. - Oh, that's so nice.
I'm not really a morning person, though.
I'll lock up when I leave.
Bruh, ooh. Who fucking does that?
But I'm reasonable. I didn't trip.
[whistle blowing]
Then when I got home...
- Ah... - Fuck.
Ah... Did you want me to leave?
'Cause I was gonna make you some salmon.
- I could eat, yeah. - Yeah.
You're like a medium in pants here, right?
Yeah. How'd you know that?
[snickers]
Fuck.
[groans]
I love salmon.
- How was it? - Sex was bananas.
The salmon? Pan-fried perfectly.
- Ooh. - The next morning...
What's up? Let me just finish this accent wall
before I bounce, okay?
This dude busting out canes
of Benjamin Moore like he was on HGTV.
Tea, your place could really use some color.
I bet it looks nice.
- It did look nice. - Okay.
But no. I want him gone.
What am I supposed to do, huh? Fight him?
Call the police on another Black man?
I'm gonna ask you a very sensitive question.
Shoot.
- Do you like this guy? - No, I'm not you.
- I'm not. I want him out. - Uh-huh.
[groans]
But...
He keeps giving me head and feeding me delicious food.
- Oh, that sounds terrible. - No, but he's full of excuses.
"They're spraying for roaches in my apartment."
"There's a sinkhole on my block."
Maybe there is a sinkhole on his block.
No, he is a hobosexual.
Well, your hobosexual can put me at the Underground
the night of the Russian.
Okay? So maybe we keep our friends close
and our witnesses closer.
He hasn't said anything about it.
Can you try not to piss this guy off
before I can figure out what to do about the police?
What are you going to do about the police?
DIARRA: There was only one thing I could do.
- Hello. - Solve the fucking case.
I'm going to figure out how to give them Zervas.
This is too much.
[bell rings]
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
[tires screech]
[dramatic music]
Hi. What the hell?
- Help! - Shut up!
[On videogame] Finish her.
[inaudible]
* *
You suck.
This is very unnecessary. Can somebody please explain...?
Turns out getting to Zervas wasn't hard.
The fuck?
[suspenseful music]
That's the original Mr. Greek.
I was just a snot-nosed kid washing dishes
when I started here.
Pop Pop's gonna talk to the lady. Okay?
You want some ice cream?
All right. Joe, get my boy some ice cream, will you?
Go ahead.
* *
Stop me if you've heard this. All right?
About three decades ago, this cop,
he gets a swollen hard-on for me.
Makes it his mission to cap me
for this Black kid went missing...
They never find the kid.
I never heard shit about it again until two months ago.
Out of the clear blue, this guy shows up.
He's got a lot of ideas about me and this fucking Black kid.
Is there a reason you keep making a point
of him being Black?
He wants money, which I'm not going to do.
I work very hard for my dough.
He's not going to leave it alone. He's not the type.
- And then, presto, he vanishes. - How convenient for you.
Here's the wrinkle.
Someone else shows up to this guy's shakedown.
A school teacher.
You know what I think?
Handsome man comes to town,
charms a little school teacher, right?
He makes love to her, shows her a good time.
She doesn't suspect he's a con man.
I couldn't believe the Greek mob
had such a stellar research department.
Here's an alt version.
Mob guy smuggling drugs through a pizza and gyro shop?
I'm sorry, I can never remember. What is the pronunciation?
Is it "guy-ro" or "jy-ro"?
It's "Ero". Okay. "Ear" and "row."
"Ero." Thank you. Got it.
Mob guy smuggling drugs through an "Ero" shop.
Kidnaps child witness.
Years later, he sends a hitman to clean up his mess.
A hitman whose phone only caught this place.
[line trilling]
MAN: Mr. Greek's.
I knew immediately I shouldn't have said that.
I got smug.
You're not going to drag me through this crap again.
I already pissed off my wife once about the titty bar.
Well, it's nice to know
who you think the real victim is.
Look, I may be an asshole, but that don't change the facts.
I was nowhere near that kidnapping.
I was at Eden's Strip Club the whole time.
[door closes]
What'd they give you? That's cookie dough.
My favorite. Smart man.
DIARRA: I so badly wanted to tell this kid
that Pop Pop was a piece of shit.
I want us to be friends, Teach.
Friends take care of each other. Right?
My friends bring me gifts, even.
My love language is more physical touch.
Words of affirmation.
It's a good idea to keep this light and breezy, right?
Which is why you're still with us.
That, and your hotshot soon-to-be-ex golfs
with some very important people at Palmer Woods.
Opa!
You have until Friday to show me
you want to be my friend,
or something else entirely.
Opa!
I wasn't sure if he wanted
the Russian's phone or Chris' location.
I didn't have either.
So I followed Lincoln's advice:
"Better to be silent and be thought a fool
than speak and remove all doubt."
Three nights, Teach. Three nights.
Are you going to call me a fucking Uber?
Swa's was the only number I had memorized.
He picked me up seconds before I turned into an icicle,
- and I was grateful. - You have no law enforcement
training and you have no experience in any of that shit.
So what? You don't need that
to become a PI in the state of Michigan.
- But you can't be a felon. - What? Nobody regulates that.
Yes, they do. What do you...?
You should have called me
the minute that you got in over your head.
[sighs] They didn't take anything.
- I was worried about you, okay? - Really?
So how come you're not off somewhere
worried about Miss Mychelle?
'Cause Mychelle wasn't in a sex club. How about that?
Look, I'm celebrating my divorce, okay?
I'm fresh on the market. I want to see what the kids are into.
Turns out it's kink, and I like it.
- Who were you with? - Who's asking?
My husband or my lawyer?
Your lawyer. Your lawyer is asking. Okay?
'Cause this detective that's on you, he's a good cop.
He's relentless. He's no joke.
So there's nothing else that connects you
to the club the night of the shooting?
* *
MAN: Yo, these niggas out here shooting at the Underground.
* *
- No. - Okay, good.
I can figure out how to fix this.
But, in the meantime, you need to come home.
[dramatic music]
Who's asking?
My husband or my lawyer?
- I don't want to fight. - No, I...
You never want to fight.
- Not for me. - All we do is fight.
You debate, you criticize, you control.
And the difference is what?
Heart.
[tense music]
Think about what I said.
But then I did just that.
Listen to me, please. I wasn't cheating.
I didn't start seeing Francois until after
you two were separated.
He was here the whole time.
Yep. The whole time.
And I realized they got their story straight.
Those lying bitches.
Yes. Yes.
Holstein. I am on the verge of something that is going
to reopen the Deonte Brooks case and probably prove
that the Russian's killer was involved.
So, bam. Call me back.
This is Diarra. Brickland.
This plan is nuts.
It may be, but the strippers hold the key
to Zerva's alibi in '95. Here.
Just read their highlighted statements, please.
Hmm. Okay. Um...
- "He was here the whole time"? - With passion.
"Zervas was here to whole time."
Zervas was there the whole time. And...
When a group of students
all had the exact same wrong answer...
- They cheated. - They cheated.
- Let me see this. - Same can be said
for ex-husbands and their skanky girlfriends.
Whoa. Okay. What is your point?
My point is the strippers got their story straight.
We need to talk to them.
Wait, half these strippers probably in jail or dead.
WANDREEKA: My uncle once disappeared for six months.
He came back married to a stripper on disability.
- Tea, that is very judgmental. - Yeah.
Some of them could have been stripping
their way through law school.
- Yeah. - I doubt it.
- What? - What's the life expectancy
- of a stripper? - Ask your mama.
What are you doing now?
I need to call Wandreeka's uncle.
He's run through half the strippers in the D.
We had a nice heart-to-heart about it
during his parent/teacher conference, I think.
Fuck y'all be talking about
during your parent/teacher conferences?
- So much. - Okay, let's say
we track them down. And then what?
We ain't breaking that glitter wall of silence.
Strippers don't talk.
Monique, that was 30 years ago.
By now, they've forgotten to remember to lie.
Plus, Marshall's dumb ass walked in there with a badge.
- We not doing that. - Because we don't have badges.
* *
- Oh, hi. DIARRA: Wandreeka's uncle
hadn't seen Flora's sexy ass in years,
but he had a beat on Cinnamon
and her "big missiles" working down at the DMV.
Rolexxx had a job at Target.
And Miss Ebony Poles was a paralegal now.
She really was stripping to pay her way through law school.
- Fuck! - I loved that for her.
[all cheering]
The Detroit Flamingos of Eden's Ethiopia
may be the most beloved exotic dancers in all of the Midwest.
The Flamingos were legends.
But one thing they never got was a voice.
Pretty good.
Hey, they gonna have to stop twerking
if they want me to do their hair.
How do you get me to do shit like this?
Because you love me.
Also, you said you wanted to give back to the community.
- These hoes are the community. - Not these hoes.
Shh!
[indistinct chatter]
DIARRA: I told them we were making
a documentary on strippers
as the keepers of Detroit's oral history.
"Griots on the Fringe."
"Ample Bottoms," take one.
I had to throw in glam, but people start talking
when you put a camera in their face.
Okay, ladies, just your name...
Oh, yes, it's Cinnamon, spelled the regular way.
- I'm Rolexxx. - These women
had stories on stories.
Stripping used to be a contact sport.
Now, any hoe with a ring light and Wi-fi can get rich.
Yeah, we walked so these hoes could fly.
- Ooh. - Say that.
Back in the '90s, when those factory dudes was flush...
DIARRA: But there was only one story I really cared about.
The day Deonte went missing.
I knew they'd remember that day in detail.
Shit, everybody did.
Okay, let's talk about the day of the OJ verdict.
ALL: Oh, yes! [laughter]
Wait, okay, okay.
Watching the verdict live was all me and Flora's idea.
- It was Flora's idea. - Mm-hmm.
- Okay. These haters... - Flora was a sweetheart.
She was. She was.
And back then, she went by Wet and Wild.
And where is Miss Wet and Wild now?
She'd been out the business for a while.
Ain't nobody seen her in years.
- She was smart, though. - Yes.
Flora knew the verdict was coming out,
so she asked Corn if we could dance that day.
- Normally, we would never. - Oh.
Day shift was for second-tier bitches.
- I heard that. ALL: * Second-tier bitches *
And, look, if the verdict came out guilty,
then we knew folks were going to need cheering up.
But now, if the juice got loose.
Oh, shit. It was about to be a party up in there.
Now, it's like, "OJ who?"
He could be sitting right there and I wouldn't say shit to him.
- Yeah, I'd turn the other way. - Man, fuck OJ.
But that day, he represented victory.
- Uh-huh. - We all felt like Americans.
- Black joy on ten, you feel me? - Up here.
There wasn't any white people there fucking up the vibe.
Not during the verdict.
Or, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, yes, yes, yes. The Greek guy.
Oh, yeah, right.
But he came through after, though.
He wasn't a fan of the legal system neither.
So you're sure the Greek guy was there?
Yeah, I gave him a dance before the show.
Oh, and I seen him when I got off.
He was arguing with Cornelius.
He always liked to tie up the phone.
Okay, so wait a minute,
you're sure he was there at the beginning of the show
and at the end, but nobody saw him in between?
- Uh-uh. - Uh-uh.
And just like that, I had done what Marshall couldn't.
Gotten the Flamingos to blow a hole in Zerva's alibi.
* *
- Wow. - Oh, man.
What the fuck is this?
Is this the right spot?
See, I am so glad that I brought my toilet seat covers in here.
Come on.
- Is she okay? - Give me some singles.
Oh, I'm good. Um...
You know what, actually, I'll pay you to stop. I will.
- Hold on. - It's still going.
Okay. Zervas leaves this exciting locale
during the first dance.
He has 44 minutes. That's the showtime.
Plus the ten minutes they play to the verdict.
He gets in his car.
[indistinct chatter]
Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.
Why you get to drive?
'Cause I'm a professional.
You're a professional bus driver.
And I'm a professional whoop-your-ass if you don't go
to the other side of that car.
DIARRA: He drives straight to Northview Mall.
Northview? Didn't they tear down that ghetto ass mall?
- Shit. - Shit!
Okay, listen. 21 minutes, 43 seconds.
I told you, I'm fucking nice with it.
We still got to snatch a motherfucking kid.
Okay. Right, right.
DIARRA: He walks into the mall...
- Why the sugar? - 'Cause he's white.
- He checks the package. - And everything's cool?
- Everything's cool. - Then Deonte wanders in.
I'm here, and I see Deonte, okay?
"Oh, hell no. You know too much."
And you get on him.
Yeah. "Come here, little nigga. Come here."
Wait, wait. I'm white, and I wouldn't say nigga,
but then again, it is the '90s, so maybe I would.
- Yeah, I would, I would-- - Tick tock. Tick tock.
Okay. "Come here, little nigga.
Come here. Yeah, you get in this car. Get in this car."
Wait, wait. I'm supposed to take you.
Okay, so why would he go back here...
if he's already been through that?
- That's what I want to know. - Hmm.
Deonte's in the trunk. He needs an alibi.
* *
Do we make it?
Zervas had time!
[all cheer]
DIARRA: Breaking his alibi, man, I'd go back
to that second meeting armed with leverage.
So do you really think it's that simple?
What, Zervas gets locked up
and then Deonte just comes out of hiding?
Well, he called me for a reason. I must be on his radar.
Ooh.
So what do you think he's going to say when he finds out
you fucking your robbing-ass neighbor?
- No. No, no, no, no. - Come on, now.
[hums]
[knocking on door]
[dramatic music]
* *
[clears throat] How'd you find me?
Your man Roman said you've been shacked up here a few days.
Tank dead.
He not answering his phone,
and none of the Woodward Boys have seen him.
The Greeks is walking back a 30-year truce.
Only folks I can trust now is family.
Kinda sharp for a fuck toy, ain't it?
I'm serious, Kelvin.
I need to know if we still family.
I am not fucking my robbing-ass neighbor.
You cheating on Milk Carton Boy?
No, I'm not. Aja, defend me.
I--I'm gonna have to agree with this woman for a change
right here, friend.
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
First off, you have Milk Carton Boy.
You have your neighbor, and you still married to Swa.
She said a fucking triangle. Give me a love rectangle.
Love rectangle. That's my stripper name.
Oh. Mine is Miss Shea Butter.
Thunderdome.
Aja.
- Okay. - Okay, sure.
[indistinct chatter]
* *
DIARRA: Maybe being naked was contagious,
because after a couple of drinks,
everyone was laid bare.
This Lion is making me horny as shit.
I don't think I'm gonna make it, y'all.
We are going to have to break up,
in the sweet name of Jesus.
Well, may I remind you, Pastor Thirstrap,
that you have fallen off the celibacy bandwagon before.
- Ut... - Ut?
- I rebuke that. - Uh-huh.
That was then.
Now I have affirmations. I have a prayer plan.
Well, I hope you have a plan B,
because with your track record...
Damn.
They can't see you coming.
[laughter]
Fuck all y'all.
This dude is overshadowing all of my hard work.
Okay, well, at least KeyShawn accepted you were boss.
I mean, Roman is pissed that I do
anything that don't chain me to the house.
Oh, you mean like fight crime? He might have a point, friend.
Okay, look, I gave him the best titties of my life
before Roman just sucked them into sadness.
Wait, your husband sucked your titties into sadness?
No, no, not that Roman. Roman Jr., my son.
I'm just saying, like, I want something for me.
And what I need is for crazy-ass Moni
to bring her crazy ass
to my house and evict this squatter.
It's okay. Fall in love, Tea.
You can do it. Just fall in love.
- Being gay is not romantic. - What?
- Especially in the D. - Okay, so why don't you
just move then, friend?
Because New York is fucking dirty
and LA is too fucking white, and Atlanta is too fucking gay.
That's true.
Yeah, I'm a nigga from the D. Period.
And as soon as you're in the clear with the cops,
I'm evicting this bum.
Well, I'm evicting my negroes too.
- Fuck these niggas. - To us.
- To us.
[indistinct chatter]
DIARRA: And I almost meant it.
There were a few things I didn't tell my friends that night.
I was not evicting this dude. Danger and I weren't smashing.
But what was happening wasn't exactly platonic.
Ready?
[soul song playing]
* *
So this nigga had been giving me... massages.
* *
[exhales]
[moans]
* *
[doorbell rings]
[doorbell continues ringing]
Who's there?
SWA: Dee, it's me. Come on. Dee.
Hey. I'll just say you got yourself a damn good lawyer.
I backed Holstein off, so if he even thinks
about calling you, you have to call me first.
But whatever it is that you're doing, stop.
I couldn't stop, police backing down or not.
I still had an impending date with the mob.
Okay, so we ain't got no, "I hear you, Swa.
You're right, Swa. I got us, Swa."
Thank you. Yes, thank you.
Thank you so much for talking to Holstein.
I was... Poof. I was freaking out.
[mumbles] You know I like to fix things.
I know.
Yeah.
Listen, I know you think
that you're some type of budding detective
or some type of body language expert or some shit,
but, I have to tell you, you have no clue what you're doing.
MYCHELLE: I'm not happy about it.
But I get it. You're still married.
And it's complicated. Timing's a bitch.
Guess we won't make it to our three month anniversary
after all.
I, uh... guess I wish you guys luck.
Three months.
I told you I wasn't cheating. You gonna say something?
[creaking]
I got it.
You doing good down there, Dee?
Yeah, yeah. I'm good.
If I was wrong about Swa cheating,
then I missed something else entirely in my marriage.
Something big.
Maybe I was missing something big here, too.
* *
- Felt like Americans. - Ah.
And we could be as happy as we wanted to be.
That's right.
Black joy on ten. You feel me?
DIARRA: Let's talk about the day of the OJ verdict.
[all cheering]
Stripping used to be a contact sport.
- That's right. - You had regulars.
You knew what they liked. You even knew their kids' names.
One of my regulars always made sure I got to my car okay.
A gentleman. He ended up shooting somebody at a Best Buy,
but that was very out of character for him.
* *
All the dope boys came in there smelling like Cool Water.
Watching the verdict live with all me and Flora's ID.
- It was Flora's ID. - Uh-huh.
She had on this pink feather number.
She went by Wet and Wild.
[cheering]
Foreman said "not guilty," and you would have thought it meant
they was about to free every nigga from here to Kingdom...
[laughter]
Wet and Wild up on stage, screaming, "We won. We won!"
[laughter]
Rolexxx and Flora was hugging and crying.
Man, that was the first time I seen us beat the system.
I'll never fucking forget it.
[dramatic music]
* *
DIARRA: Sometimes it's the things
people don't say that are way more important
than the things they do.
There is a lot to be said for the unsaid.
[sighs]
Where the fuck is Ebony?
* *
Girl, I can't tell whose wings I like better.
Either MoFo's or Sweet Waters.
- Sweet Waters. - I'm going to let you decide.
Thank you for coming by. I just had one more question
I wanted to follow up about the day of the verdict.
You weren't out on the floor that day. Why is that?
Of course I was.
Ebony, the other ladies,
they recall every little detail about that day.
Cinnamon remembers what she had for lunch.
A Coney dog with chili cheese and fries and a Faygo red pop.
Only thing they don't seem to mention is you.
And you know what I think?
I think it's because your ass wasn't out there.
But that's just me.
Why are you going into all this?
Because I am so close to finding Deonte Brooks.
Deonte Brooks?
You mean that boy that got snatched up in Northview?
Zervas did it. I know that.
The only thing I don't know is why you're lying to protect him.
Wasn't Zervas.
Uh, girl, wake up. Yes, it was.
Zervas was security for the Greeks, all right?
If something needed to be handled
back in '95, he handled it.
When the verdict came down, I was giving him a hand job.
With my mouth.
The girls weren't about to snitch.
Was against the rules.
Okay, first of all, that's not how a hand job works.
Second of all, maybe you're misremembering it.
Maybe he snuck out or went to the bathroom.
No, no. We were back there a long time.
How long was y'all back there?
He couldn't come. And we kept getting interrupted.
His beeper was going crazy, and he made a lot of calls.
- Calls to who? - Trouble at the plant.
Some guy was talking strike, and Zervas wanted to hurt him.
- Kill him, I think. - Wait a minute.
Why would Zervas even care about trouble
- at some damn plant? - You know the D.
The mob controlled the union,
and this whistleblower was trying to change all that.
A strike would have shut down the plant.
DIARRA: The PKR plant is the best bet for a rendezvous.
What about his dad? Where was he?
Working a double shift at the plant.
30 men on the line to vouch for him.
Your husband sucked your titties into sadness?
No, no. Not that Roman. Roman Jr., my son.
- Deonte Brooks. VONDA: Deonte James Brooks.
DIARRA: And it hit me like a bat.
They kidnapped the wrong fucking Deonte.
* *
Oh, well. Well, well.
Guess we've decided to be friends, uh?
Have a seat.
To friends.
I don't have what you want.
The Russian's phone was at the bottom of the Detroit River.
I got rid of it. Oh, and guess what I figured out.
You actually were at Eden's the whole time.
You weren't even interested in that kid.
You were looking for Senior.
- What would I want with him? - Oof.
Deonte Senior had a lot of friends.
And when he talked strike, well, people listened.
So the plan was to shut him up.
But some dumb-ass henchman took Deonte Jr
instead of senior, which y'all have a GED
requirement at the Greek mob,
'cause damn, that's some dumb shit.
But anyway, didn't matter to you.
You got what you wanted, right?
Senior was so bereft, he climbed into a bottle.
Strike never happened.
And OG Mr. Greek fast-tracks you.
- America. - You're delusional.
I think Chris picked PKR on purpose
for his little rendezvous point.
See, his father was jeopardizing the mob's cash cow,
and that is how all of this shit got started.
I had stellar research too, bitch.
I had my 7th graders pull up all articles
about the plant during study hall.
So why am I listening to this?
'Cause it involves your grandson.
Careful, Teach.
You're going to leave here to the meat grinder.
That wouldn't change the email I've already got
scheduled to Child Protective Services.
And me and Miss Juanita over there,
I swear to God, we are like this, Zervas.
I've outlined your entire history
of abuse towards children.
Now, listen, they might clear you,
but once they start digging, ooh,
you could be tied up for years in court,
unable to see the little man. Mm.
That's a damn shame, isn't it?
When children become collateral damage?
- So what do you want? - I want to know everything.
Who were you talking to that day at Eden's, huh?
Who's calling the shots?
[clears throat]
Come on, let's go. Spit it out, Zervas.
Guess what they say is true.
You want something done right, you got to do it.
Who was on the goddamn phone?
Chief. [clears throat] Chief needed a favor, so.
[clears throat]
You all right? You want some water?
[clears throat, gasps for air]
[dramatic music]
[groans]
[dramatic music]
* *
[indistinct murmuring]
* *
It wasn't an asterisk.
Marshall's partner was drawing a spider.
* *
[gasps]
[car approaching]
[gasps]
[welps]
[sirens approaching]
* *
- Mom! - Shh! Daddy's working.